What began as a bluff has grown into the best film festival in Los Angeles, powered by eclectic, unpredictable programming and faithfully enthusiastic audiences.
“I remember we were just going to do one year,” said Grant Moninger, cofounder of Beyond Fest and artistic director of the American Cinematheque. “Everyone started asking, ‘What is going to be shown Year 2?’ And we were like, ‘Oh, there’s a Year 2?’”
The 13th edition of
@beyondfest in 2025, produced in partnership with the
@am_cinematheque , begins Tuesday night and runs through Oct. 8. Showing more than 90 features, with screenings at the Egyptian Theatre, Aero Theatre and Los Feliz 3, Beyond Fest will open with the U.S. premiere of Park Chan-wook’s satirical thriller
@nootherchoicefilm and closing with the sci-fi paranoia of Yorgos Lanthimos’ new
@bugoniafilm . The program will also feature an expansive retrospective of 12 features by Guillermo del Toro, with the filmmaker present for select screenings.
Past highlights of the festival include #Parasite filmmaker Bong Joon Ho spiking a beach ball into the audience, Arnold Schwarzenegger arm-wrestling a 9-year-old boy and James Cameron making a rare appearance to screen the special edition of #TheAbyss in 2023 (pictured above) — moments that won’t happen anywhere else.
Part of what makes Beyond Fest so exciting is its broad-ranging programming. Though rooted in the concept of genre — which typically means a selection of gritty thrillers, horror and action — Beyond Fest pushes well past such basic concepts.
“It really comes back to what does genre mean?” says Christian Parkes, cofounder of Beyond Fest. “There’s what it meant, at a certain place and time. But why does it have to mean that today? If you look at the filmmakers and their inspirations and then the people that are watching these films, we can be a part of opening the debate. It’s always evolving.”
Learn more about the fest and this year’s lineup at the link in
@latimes_entertainment ’s bio.
📸 Jared Cowan
